Quotable
by Anti-Kryptonite
Summary: A phrase, a question, a statement, a throwaway reply - these can all betray our innermost thoughts. A selection of single lines of dialogue from each episode, seconds in time that show what's beneath the surface.
1. Pilot: Jonathan Kent

A/N: These began (a LONG time ago) as a sort of writing exercise to get me thinking through specific characters' points of view and were fun to do - just found them and thought I'd share in the hopes it'll motivate me to get writing and posting again! Hope you enjoy and please tell me what you think! In this first story, I delve into one of my favorite characters - Jonathan Kent!

Disclaimer: Dialogue from each of these are taken from specific episodes and were written by others; no copyright infringement is intended.

-S-

You stand there, straight and tall, not quite sure where or how to put your arms in the outlandish costume Martha came up with (and really, I should have known that whatever her 'artistic' mind produced would be this strange and colorful), and I can tell that you're scared and nervous and unsure. But still you stand there and ask me what I think.

You're always a little scared, always just that bit off-balance, a step behind everyone else. I know that's partly my fault, but you were _mine_, Clark, _ours_, and I couldn't risk that, couldn't ever let someone come and take you away from us. So, yeah, maybe I overdid the dissection bit and maybe I told you too many times to be careful about how much you let show in front of others, but I hope you know that I've always been proud of you.

Because you're standing here in our living room in a farm in Kansas (and much as I love it, I know that it's not exactly what most people would call desirable), and you're dressed in an outfit that very obviously makes you uncomfortable, and you're ready and waiting to put your life on the line.

And all to help others.

I know I haven't been the best dad there ever was. I know that I've made mistakes. But in this moment, looking there at you, I feel so incredibly proud. Of you—and a little bit of me. Because for all the mistakes I made, I did something right. Your sense of right and wrong, your strong integrity, they were yours, but I didn't stamp them out, didn't teach you to ignore them, and maybe I even helped you develop them a bit. And you're trying to help and you're selfless and good, and I know all parents think their own children are the best, but I'm pretty sure that I have more reason than most.

You were put in a tiny spaceship and shot away—from another planet or just from somewhere horrible and _wrong_ on this planet. And we found you. Out of all the nights and all the roads, Martha and I were on the right road at the right time to find a tiny little infant who smiled up at us and curled his fingers around my thumb. Sometimes the chance of it all boggles my mind and leaves me standing motionless, trying to wrap my brain around it.

And other times, like now, I just feel my heart swell up with pure gratitude. Because you're my son—our son—and you're standing in a costume that will outshine those fancy lit stores in Metropolis, and you're looking at me all full of fear and hope and nervousness, and I know one way or another you're going to change the world.

So I smile and I even get out a laugh despite the terror squeezing my insides into shapes much like your mother's clay when she's done molding it, and I say, "That's my boy."

And you are.

-S-


	2. Strange Visitor: Burton Newcomb

A/N: Hopefully, everyone will remember the suspicious old General who helped Lois and Clark find Bureau 13 and Trask!

-S-

"Sure," the young reporter says, like it's the most natural thing in the world, and I can't help but frown and pause and look over at him. Not just for interrupting me (youngsters these days just don't know that they're supposed to listen to their elders), but also because the response seems a little strange.

"Sure," he says, and I wonder what kind of life he's led to make him look as if he really does know what it's like to have a secret stashed away inside, a secret so big it makes it impossible to talk to anyone or meet anyone new or even walk down the street without looking at everyone and everything suspiciously, warily, as apprehensively as if you are in enemy territory.

This young reporter, this Clark Kent, has an open face, honest and unassuming, but I've known soldiers younger than him who looked just as guileless yet had seen war, so maybe it shouldn't have come as such a surprise. But it does. Because he radiates honesty in a way few others can, and even when his partner looks at him in surprised derision, he doesn't close down, just sputters out some line about sources.

I know what it's like to have a secret festering inside you. I know what it's like to hide it from everyone close to you—the lack of a wife or kids or any friends in this house can attest to that. I even know what it's like to hide a secret behind a façade. So maybe this Kent actually does have a secret.

If so, he's managed to handle it far better than I could. Or maybe it's just because he's young. Life hasn't had a chance to sink its claws into him yet, hasn't managed to thoroughly disillusion him and weight him down with all its burdens. As I well know, the world isn't kind to those who hold secrets, and lies get crueler and harsher the longer they drip out of your mouth. Maybe one day, if he comes back (though considering the secret I'm keeping, I certainly hope he doesn't have cause to want to talk to me again), I'll look at him and see the lines etched into his face, the scars drawn by deception and fear.

I hope not. The secrets I keep aren't worth the lies I told to keep them, that's for sure. And giving these determined reporters a bit of help, even backhanded help I can't (or won't) admit to, isn't going to make my own burdened past any lighter. But maybe, just maybe, it'll help this young man realize that secrets always come to light sooner or later, and it's never in the way you want.

Or maybe he already knows it. Maybe that's why he can look so hopeful and unaffected by his secret—knowing that one day the secrecy will end might be what allows him to keep that hope shining there behind his thick glasses.

I don't know. And truthfully, I don't _want_ to know.

I've had enough of secrets—a lifetime and more of secrets I couldn't stomach even when I thought I was doing the right thing. So I'll give them my secret and I'll let them walk away and I'll hope I never have to see them again.

And maybe, just maybe, I'll learn how to live my life _without_ secrets.

-S-


	3. Never-Ending Battle: Lex Luthor

A/N: Whew, Lex Luthor is hard to write for - so evil that it's as intriguing as it is intimidating!

-S-

A weakness. It may not seem like much, my good man (or whatever you are), not after I've successfully discovered just how vast and wide-ranging your abilities are, but it is there nonetheless. A chink in red and blue armor that otherwise might be just a bit too invulnerable for my own good. A failing, in actuality, and now you're no longer intimidating—now you're just a challenge. A good one, one worthy of a man of my talents and intellect, one that will break the boredom inherent in a life of endless minutiae and the mundane details needed to run an empire, but a challenge just the same.

And you're new around here, so you might not know, but I never turn down a challenge. And I never lose either. Oh, you might think you've caused me some sort of set-back by ignoring my unspoken ultimatum and coming back to blind the world with your flashy powers, but it is always brain that beats brawn, my dear friend, mind over matter, which means I'm not afraid.

No, truthfully, this is a welcome diversion. An interesting test I can use to stretch myself. It was awfully helpful of you to confront me yourself and let me know just whose side you're on (I might have wasted days or weeks trying to convert you to my employ otherwise), but it was also a gauntlet thrown down at my feet, and now I can use you in my schemes whether you work for me or not.

"Superman has morals," I tell my manservant, and that is that.

I've already won, you see. Once you accept morals, you accept limits, boundaries that you refuse to cross and thus, _cannot_ cross. You wall yourself in behind limits that make you less than you can be, and when there are lines you will not step over, there are victories you will never obtain.

So you may be able to fly from one end of this city to the others, and you may be able to survive the point-blank explosion of a bomb, and you may even be all but invulnerable, but as long as you will come to the pleading call of a victim, as long as you treasure life over power…well, this is a challenge, but it won't be a contest.

Total power is what you have, my friend, yet you allow yourself to be inhibited, put under the control of what others decree right or wrong. That's your second mistake (your first, naturally, was setting yourself against me), but I'm reasonably certain it won't be your last.

Because _I'm _not inhibited or controlled, and there isn't a single line that I won't cross should the occasion warrant it. Ruthless—a good word—and those who are willing to put it all on the line are the ones who eventually walk away with the spoils.

So enjoy your moment of fame. Enjoy the newspaper articles and the keys to the city and the applause of Lois Lane. In the end, it won't matter, nothing more than a spark in a pan. In the end, you _will_ fall.

And I will be there, savoring my triumph.

That is, after all, what it means to be Lex Luthor.

-S-


	4. I'm Looking Through You: Cat Grant

I'm Looking Through You: Cat Grant

* * *

Her eyes are rolling, her mouth is tucked to the side in that thoroughly irritating way she has of showing her disgust with her entire face, and her barb rolls off of me without hurting in the least.

It's easy to smirk, easy to give her a once-over out of the corner of my eye. Easy to snicker at her and make the tiniest hint of insecurity enter her expression.

"Less is more, darling," I say, and then I pause (this part is easy, too, so practiced it's become second-nature), and snicker again, and add, "Sometimes."

And it is. Usually.

But Lois Lane has something I'll never have. I've been working with her for several years now, always throwing put-downs and come-backs her way, ignoring the taunts she sends out in reply, and yet, I still don't understand what it is she has that the rest of us don't.

She stands here, so forlorn and awkward as Superman walks past us. Her disappointment is written all across her, like lipstick applied too liberally and mascara running down pale cheeks. She thinks Superman doesn't care at all about her, but the truth is, I know he does. He came to _her_, after all, gave her his first interview. The fact that he's ignoring her here doesn't change anything—men like to play their games, to divert attention and distract the eye and play their emotional sleight-of-hand. They accuse women of being the ones to play games and use the art of manipulation, but if the society pages have taught me anything, it's that everyone, no matter their gender, wears their masks and dangles their shiny jewelry and dark secrets to distract from the vulnerability they all feel.

And I'm no different.

Lois may think I look down on her, but the truth is a bit nastier than that. You see, I'm _jealous_ of her. I've worked just as hard as her, for longer than her, but she's the star reporter, and I'm…well, I'm second-best. Or an afterthought. Invisible whenever she's around, like a switch that gets flicked.

She's younger and she's pretty and she's ambitious, and she's chock-full of personality quirks that should send men running for the hills. But there's that _something_. That _something_ none of the rest of us have.

And everyone knows it.

Superman does. He's working the room (not as skillfully as Lex Luthor or the other more consummate showmen), always turned toward the woman who won his date—and always, _always_, where he can see Lois out of the corner of his eye.

Lex Luthor's seen it. For months, Lois has been hounding his office, trying to get the first one-on-one interview with him (really, sometimes she just sets herself up for failure), but now, one White Orchid Ball and one dance later, _he's_ the one calling _her_ for meetings and appointments and lunches.

And Clark sees it. One good man—a nice guy, finally, come to work at the Daily Planet—and even before I saw him, he was already Lois's. He follows her around, watches her constantly, and another, less-_somethinged_ woman can't even try to change his mind without receiving dirty looks from him and worried glances toward Lois (and okay, so maybe pretending our few hours together hadn't all been on the up-and-up wasn't my best idea, but a girl can get frustrated, you know). He's cute and he's nice and he smiles and tells me good morning even though I know he's still upset with me…and none of it matters at all.

Because Lois has more, and less is sometimes just less, and no one will ever see me when she's around.

So yeah, sometimes I really hate her. But most of the time? Most of the time I just hate being invisible.


	5. Requiem For A Superhero: Clark Kent

Requiem For A Superhero: Clark Kent

* * *

"You don't want to be partnered with a hypocritical reporter who talks a good game but backs off the minute things hit too close to home," she says, all scowls and narrowed eyes and self-reproach.

And I have to smile.

In Smallville, there were countless times I wondered what would happen if anyone found out about the freak kid who could run faster than tornados, could lift tractors over his head, could see through barns, could set haystacks on fire. Dad always told me to be careful, that the world was full of people who'd exploit me and use me and study me. Mom was never quite as adamant about it, but I could tell she was afraid for me, afraid someone would take me away from them.

In college, I had to work extra jobs just to be able to afford a single dorm room because I couldn't take the chance of anyone seeing me float in my sleep. I would sometimes look at my classmates, my professors, my friends, and imagine the looks on their faces if they found out I wasn't just the mild-mannered farmboy they thought I was.

In every country I visited, every small town I passed through, every person I met in my journey searching for a place to belong, I was terrified that I'd be exposed as a freak. An alien. An outcast.

Mom and Dad taught me to always believe the best in everyone. To look at the world and see the good things. I've tried my best to do that, even when it's hardest, but for all that, I've never been able to convince myself that someone finding out about my secret would turn out well. I've never been able to think past the imagined looks of shock and horror and fear and revulsion on their faces. I've never really thought that if a reporter found out about me, it wouldn't be splashed across every newspage in the world.

But Lois looks at me, and she thinks she did the wrong thing—and I know firsthand how hard it was for her to kill the story—but she still did it. She's still covering for her father. Still lying for him. Still sitting on a story sure to cement her reputation as the best investigative reporter in the world.

Do I want a partner who would protect someone she cares about if she found out about their secret?

"Yes, I do," I say. And for once, that's not a lie, not an omission, not even an evasion.

It's the complete and absolute truth.

In fact, the _whole _truth is—that's the only kind of partner I'd ever want. And maybe…well, maybe one day I'll get the chance to see if she'll do the same thing for me.


	6. I've Got A Crush On You: Lois Lane

I've Got A Crush On You: Lois Lane

* * *

He's too close to her. Sitting next to her, his head just below hers, a perspective she's not used to, his eyes locked (as it so often is) on her, and she should be moving away. Should be scared and upset and angry and ranting about anything and everything just so long as he puts some distance between them.

But she's not scared, because this is Clark. There's a smile curving his lips, and his voice was as light and teasing as the question called for, and he has no idea at all how transparent he is.

So hopeful. So patient. So touched.

And she can't let him be hurt. Not like she was.

Because once, years ago, that was _her_. Hoping for attention from a more experienced reporter. Patiently biding her time as she waited for the chance to show that she was more than just a young intern. Touched by anything he threw her way, by the French-accented words he'd directed to her.

And when the end had come, it was quick and messy and so terribly painful and it's still playing itself out in her life now, like electricity crackling down the line, energy that can't be drained, only redirected.

This time, though, _she's _the one with the power. She's the one who's being watched, who's being adored from afar. She's the one who can make or break this young reporter Perry thinks is so exciting.

And there's a lot about herself she wishes she could change (those two more points she's trying to earn to reach that full hundred percent), but if there's one line she won't cross, it's this.

She won't turn into Claude.

She already stole Clark's story—she doesn't need to break his heart too.

So she smirks at him. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?" she drawls out, drawing a line that sets them apart even though he's still just as close to her as when he asked his question. "Me, home, alone, in a schlumpy robe, crying into a tub of Rocky Road. In your dreams, Kent. In your dreams."

His smile dwindles, even if he holds onto the edges of it by sheer force of will. His eyes dim a bit. That hope he seems to exhibit even in his sleep takes the intended beating and slinks away to lick its wounds.

But it's better this way. Clark might be a nice guy, and they might even work well together as a team (and he might be the most forgiving person she's ever met), but there's no chance for anything more. He's not Superman, and she's certainly not the type of woman he's looking for, and in the end, she's doing him a favor.

She won't lead him on. She won't let him think there's more between them than there really is. And she won't leave him in the middle of the night with a broken heart and a load of trust issues. She's doing the right thing here, even if he doesn't know it.

She only wishes he wouldn't look quite so hurt every time she does it.


	7. Smart Kids: Phillip Manning

Smart Kids: Phillip Manning

"Different's worse," he says, and he's Superman—tall and powerful and larger than life, and despite what I told him, I know he's fast enough to take the remote from my hand before I can do more than depress the button a fraction of an inch. But he doesn't. He just stands there and talks to me, and there's something in his voice that makes me pause. Something that moves past the intelligence spiraling through my brain like colored ropes, like fancy fireworks in a straight line. There's something in his voice that sounds a lot like sadness.

Lex Luthor is trying to talk, watching us with cold eyes that sizzle right through me. The remote is heavy in my hand. My brain is never still, never silent, opening up pathways I've never even imagined, as if the entire universe is right at my feet, and I should be planning my next move, laughing in glee at all of the plans I have for Metropolis, for the world, for places so much bigger than the island we all thought we wanted.

Only…only Superman is still standing there, looking at me, telling me just how bad being different is—and he's the one who's seen the universe. He's the one who's come from galaxies away and flown here to make a new home, the one who has the entire world clamoring for his attention, who has a key to the city and a charitable organization named after him and the spotlight always on him.

And he still looks sad.

"I'm not Superman," Clark Kent had said. "I wish I were."

But Superman wishes he was ordinary.

It's a dilemma maybe more complex than even this Mentamide 6 can unravel. A puzzle I can't quite wrap my head around. Because an ordinary man wants to be extraordinary, and a super man wants to be normal. It doesn't make sense.

But then, maybe a kid wanting to be an adult doesn't make sense either. I don't know anymore. Everything's so confusing and mixed up, rocketed back and forth between extraordinary intelligence and ordinary thoughts.

"Different is wishing you weren't," Superman says, and then he stops.

And Luthor can talk all he wants, Superman can show me as many parks and kites as there are in the world, but I already know what my decision is. It's not the smart one or the obvious one or the one Luthor thinks I'll make. It's not even the one _I_ would have thought I'd make.

But Superman knows what he's talking about (and Clark Kent was lying), and I don't want to be different anymore.

So I make the _right_ choice.


	8. The Green Green Glow Of Home:Jason Trask

The Green, Green Glow Of Home: Jason Trask

* * *

You're strong and fast and sure and the human race will be as nothing before you. You'll rend and destroy and conquer, and there's nothing we can do to stop you. Nothing at all. But I won't stop.

You think you're superior. You think you're better than us. I can see it, there in your eyes, glowing like the rock you destroyed. You look at me so scornfully, so condemningly—your derision laid out for the whole world to see.

Well, I'm _not_ less than you. You'll see. You'll feel it even if it takes my life to prove it to you.

So many people are blind, so easily misled, so naively gullible. They call you Superman and name you hero and shower you with gratitude. But I see through you. I always have. I've known this day was coming, and I've done nothing but prepare for it.

I don't care if you pretend to be a human. I don't care if you can fight through pain to get rid of that little piece of home. I don't care how protective you are of the human traitors you've taken under your protection. I don't even care how many times you hit me.

I'll never stop. I'll never give up. In this one thing, in this one moment, I can be the hero.

So go ahead and kill me. Give it your best shot. I know you can do it—there's more than enough condemnation in your eyes, more than enough power in your alien limbs. But the minute you kill me, the instant you strike me dead—I'll have won. Then all the world will see you for what you truly are. They'll look at you and finally, _finally_, see the alien. The extra-terrestrial. The invader.

You pause (weakness, here at the end?). You stare at me (something foreign in your eyes). And then you sneer (and I was right all along).

"That's not the way I work!" you spit.

And as simply as that, you let go of me. Turn your back on me. Walk away.

Even now, _still_, you think you're so much better than me! Even now you think you can outsmart me! You think this world will be yours?

Never!

I'll still win, but this way I won't even have to die to do it.

I pull the gun, and you…you're so confident in your own power, you don't even suspect a thing, too busy fishing your glasses out of the water. Blending in. A chameleon right in front of us. A costume, as if you could ever belong among us. As if you could _ever_ be one of us. No, you're just an imposter.

But weakened. Frail. And oh so very vulnerable.

"That's not the way I work," you said. Well, this _is_ the way I work, and this is the way that will win the day. This is why humans deserve to win this battle. This is why you'll never succeed in your mission to conquer us.

My finger twitches on the trigger.

A gunshot sounds.

You turn and look, wide-eyed and startled. Weak. Beaten. Drowning in your own arrogance.

And you should be dropping. You should be falling to your knees. You should be dying, bleeding out in front of me (and I wonder what color your blood is).

But the world is spinning around me, and there's something sharp and pointed and _aching_ in my chest, and everything seems to be going black.

And you turn your back on me again.

As if even in death I mean nothing. As if, for all my efforts and all my years spent preparing, I'm not worth even a second glance.

And I fall. Alone, and forgotten.

Nothing.


	9. Man Of Steel Bars: Clark Kent

Man Of Steel Bars: Superman

* * *

He's humiliated. Ashamed. Embarrassed, so much so that he almost wishes the earth would open up and swallow him into its depths. Always before he's been able to fly away, but now even the skies are denied him, and all that's left is this prison. This cell. These steel bars.

There's nothing to do (besides survive the taunts of these adult bullies), nobody to save, nowhere to go—even his job is covered for a while. He should be able to just sit and think, plan what his next move should do (what he'll do if it turns out he's really causing this heat wave).

But he can't think.

Or rather, all he can do is think—about too much, about everything, about nothing.

He'd never envisioned going to jail. Not once. And now that he is here, surrounded by cops patting him on the back or shaking his hand or smiling at him and thanking him for all that he's done even while they lock him up, he can't help but wonder if he's given away his secret identity.

He'd pushed over the filing cabinets so they wouldn't search him (he doesn't want them wondering why Superman carries ordinary clothes compressed tightly into a pocket of his cape).

He'd ruined the small podium they'd used to take his prints (he can't have Superman's prints on record, not when they can so easily be matched to Clark Kent's).

He'd given as many pictures as they wanted (he'd rather they be thinking about his celebrity-like status than as to why he needed to make a phone-call and who he could be calling at all).

He thinks he's done everything he needs to make sure the lines between Superman and Clark Kent don't blur into illegibility.

But what if he's missed something?

The inmates are jeering at him, slapping him, tugging on his cape, and all he can see is these same people—so shameless in their bullying; so defiant in their perceived safety—going after his parents. This man with his dirty hands reaching out to slap his mom aside. Or punch his dad. Or tug on Lois's dress.

All he can see is his entire fragile house of cards coming down around him.

He's Superman right now, imprisoned, under an injunction (that he will break in an instant if he needs to, he knows he will, so he can't even be angry at his incarceration), and Clark Kent is so very vulnerable.

Missing. Alone. Unaccounted for.

At least not right now. Not yet. But what about during his next hearing? Or tonight when they need to find a place to keep him? Or tomorrow when he might have to face the people of Metropolis and tell them he's leaving should it come to that?

But then…what if he has to set Superman aside and _only_ be Clark Kent?

He doesn't think he can do that either. Not anymore. Not after he's gotten a taste of being able to help so many people without fear of reprisal. Without hiding in the shadows. Without having to move on in the meantime.

"You want to help me out here?" his tormentor asks him when Superman finally ducks aside (he learned a long time ago how to deal with bullying).

"Sorry," he says (though he really isn't). "Like you said…can't use my powers."

Besides, he thinks, his heart sinking deep inside his dense musculature, he doesn't know how to help. Not anymore. Not when he's going to lose either Clark or Superman.

Not when he can't figure out, in this moment, which one is worse.


	10. Pheromone, My Lovely: Lex Luthor

Pheromone, My Lovely: Lex Luthor

* * *

"I'm doomed." The words resonate like bells, like a dirge to the fallen.

He's built an empire. Crafted a legacy that Metropolis—that the _world_—will never forget. Ensured his name is spoken of in every circle, with fear in some, with respect in others, but always _his_ name. And yet, here, alone in his fortress, with the flames flickering its warmth against his back, he can admit the truth.

His heart has been breached. The one thing he's guarded above all others. The one thing he's never allowed to stop him.

And now, thanks to perfume and Superman and a unique collection of events surrounding the woman filling his thoughts, none of it matters.

He's doomed. Damned to lose it all, in one way or another. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, or next month, or even a year from now. But eventually, somehow, this will come back to haunt him.

His one consolation is that at least his heart waited to succumb to the vagaries of love until it found a woman truly worthy of him. Lois Lane is intriguing and enchanting and beautiful and a mix of the tantalizing and the dangerous, but her worth was proven irrevocably to him at the airfield earlier. Superman himself—the only foe truly worthy of Lex's time and attention—has fixated on Lois Lane, fallen to her innocently seductive charms.

And if Lex Luthor is going to fall…well, he will make sure that he takes his enemy with him. Superman has already shown his weaknesses, already left the woman he admires open to manipulation by Lex himself. In essence, he's already lost, his own heart much less guarded and crafty than Lex's, and thus, victory is already assured.

No, what really worries Lex is his own behavior under the influence of the perfume. _Revenge_ lessens inhibitions, controls the intellectual impulses that modify instinct and reaction and impulse. And yet, under its control, Lex had not simply taken Lois. Had not swept her off her feet. Had not proven to her beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was his and his alone. Had not claimed her for his own.

Instead, he had…quoted _poetry_. Marveled at her beauty. Admired her from afar. Spoke gently, softly, as if to woo her, to court her.

As if she were better, more worthy, more _valuable_ than him.

And that just will not do. Lex Luthor is inferior to no one, most especially not an investigative journalist with a lack of good sense, an overgrown sense of curiosity, and a ridiculous infatuation with a flying alien.

This will not do, not at all.

He's doomed. Yes, he's resigned himself to that. But he is Lex Luthor, and he will not go down without a fight. What he needs is a plan, a strategy. A way to seize the high ground. And obviously, right now, the high ground is Lois Lane herself. Her heart, her hand, her entire life.

Superman won't do it. Even with _Revenge_ pumping through his bloodstream, he hadn't been able to claim the woman (though he'd gotten further than Lex himself, an unpleasant fact he has to face). His inhibitions are too deeply ingrained, his morals too damaging.

And that gives Lex the edge he needs.

So, very well, his heart has been compromised. But that's exactly what contingency plans are for, and if there's one thing he has in abundance, it's contingency plans.

Lex picks up another pile of crisp bills and runs them through his fingers. Tosses them slowly, one by one, into the fire. And he begins to plan.


	11. Honeymoon In Metropolis: Clark and Lois

Honeymoon In Metropolis: Clark Kent/Lois Lane

* * *

"You're never alone," he said, and almost felt dizzy at how appealing that suddenly sounded.

Never alone. Never on his own, wondering if there was someone, anyone, out there who could really, truly love him. Never left floating in the clouds and hoping he didn't lose all connection to the earth below.

Never alone. Having someone there who knew him. Someone he could talk to. Someone with whom he didn't have to constantly bite his tongue, choose his words with care, lie to. Someone to whom he could tell _everything_ and not be judged, just accepted.

Never alone. To have _Lois_ there with him. Every day. Working at his side. Covering for him when he had to make his excuses. Smiling at him when he saved someone or when they finished a front page story. Looping her arm through his, or just waving at him across the distance between their desks. And every night. Telling him good night without prompting or baiting. Warm and happy and _there_ (and maybe kissing him like she had earlier, on the bed, when that maid had come in).

He wanted it. Wanted it more than he'd ever wanted anything in his life.

But it was just a dream. He hoped, with everything he was, that it would one day come true. But for now, no matter how he wished otherwise, he knew she wasn't ready—and maybe he wasn't either.

Only a dream. But _oh_, it was such a sweet dream.

* * *

"You're never alone," she repeated, and almost choked at the realization of how much she wanted that.

Never alone. It should scare her. Should terrify her and put her back up and make her remind herself of all the reasons she had to be on her own. She was independent and perfectly capable of taking care of herself, and she didn't need someone always hanging around her—she'd learned how little she liked that when Lucy was staying with her.

Never alone. It should make her roll her eyes and agree that it would definitely be a drawback to living fulltime with someone. It should make her look at Clark—at the gleam in his eyes he couldn't always disguise, whether sitting over Chinese or arguing over board games—and make a sarcastic retort and remind them both how impossible this entire situation was and how glad she was that this was fake.

Never alone. It shouldn't make her think about playing games with Clark and laughing at him and eating dinner with him (and feeling his weight atop hers as he cradled her face in his hands). It shouldn't make her wonder, even if just for an instant, what it would be like to have Clark always around. Singing out his good night until she replied, teasing her about her competitiveness, helping her expose naked truths.

She imagined it. Let herself contemplate it for a long moment while she played with the ring on her finger.

But it was just a daydream. It was just an idle fancy that came and went without sticking around long enough for it to bother her. Because she knew it would never happen—not for her and not with Clark Kent.

Just a daydream. But, odd, she'd never realized before how easy it was to daydream about Clark.


End file.
